John Knudsen “Jack” Northrop (November 10, 1895 – February 18, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and designer, who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939.
His career began in 1916 as a draftsman for Lockheed Aircraft Manufacturing Company (founded 1912). He joined the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1923, where in time he became a project engineer. In 1927 he rejoined Lockheed, where he was a chief engineer on the Lockheed Vega transport. He left in 1929 to found Avion Corporation, which he sold in 1930. Two years later he founded the Northrop Corporation. This firm became a subsidiary of Douglas Aircraft in 1939, so he co-founded a second company named Northrop.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Northrop grew up in Santa Barbara, California. In 1916 Northrop’s first job in aviation was in working as a draftsman for Lockheed Aircraft Manufacturing Company, founded in 1912 by the Loughead brothers (Allan and Malcolm Loughead). In 1923, Northrop joined Douglas Aircraft Company, participating in the design of the Douglas Round-the-World-Cruiser and working up to project engineer. In early 1927, Northrop assisted Jack Ryan of Ryan Aircraft in the larger wing design used on Lindbergh’s plane “The Spirit of St Louis” that would later make the New York to Paris flight in May 1927.
In 1927 he rejoined the Loughead brothers and their newly renamed (in 1926) Loughead Aircraft Corporation, working as chief engineer on the Lockheed Vega, the civilian transport monoplane with a cantilever wing that produced unusually high performance for that period, and was widely used by such top pilots as Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, and Hubert Wilkins. In 1929 he produced an all-metal monoplane with pilot and engine within the wing structure. Although this aircraft had booms to attach the tail group, it was in fact the first step toward the flying wing.
In 1929, Northrop struck out on his own, founding the Avion Corporation, which he was forced to sell to United Aircraft and Transport Corporation in 1930. In 1932, Northrop, backed by Donald Douglas of Douglas Aircraft, founded another company, the Northrop Corporation in El Segundo, California. This company built two highly successful monoplanes, the Northrop Gamma and Northrop Delta.
By 1939 the Northrop Corporation had become a subsidiary of Douglas Aircraft, so Northrop founded another completely independent company of the same name in Hawthorne, California, a site located by Moye Stephens, one of the co-founders.
While working at this company, Northrop focused on the flying wing design, which he was convinced was the next major step in aircraft design. His first project, a reduced-scale version tested in 1940, ultimately became the giant Northrop YB-35. The Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet, a welded magnesium fighter was one of the more significant of his World War II designs, along with the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, the first American night interceptor, of which more than 700 were constructed.
His inventions continued into the postwar era of jet aircraft, to produce the Northrop F-89 Scorpion all-weather interceptor, the Northrop YB-49 long-range bomber, the Northrop Snark intercontinental missile, and automatic celestial navigation systems. He produced a number of flying wings, including the Northrop N-1M, Northrop N-9M, and Northrop YB-49. His ideas regarding flying wing technology were years ahead of the computer and electronic advances of “fly-by-wire” stability systems which allow inherently unstable aircraft like the B-2 Spirit flying wing to be flown like a conventional aircraft.[citation needed]
The flying wing and the pursuit of low drag high lift designs were Northrop’s passion, and its failure to be selected as the next generation bomber platform after World War II, and the subsequent destruction of all prototypes and incomplete YB-49s ordered by the federal government were a blow from which he never recovered, causing his association with Northrop Aviation to become almost non-existent for the next 30 years. In an interview for the Discovery Channel’s documentary The Wing Will Fly, his son John Northrop Jr. recounted his father’s devastation and lifelong suspicion that his flying wing project had been sabotaged by political influence and backroom dealing between rival Convair and high-ranking officials in the Air Force.[citation needed]
Northrop dabbled in real estate and lost much of his personal fortune. In 1976, with his health failing, he felt compelled to communicate to NASA his belief in the low drag high lift concept inherent in the flying wing. NASA replied that the idea had technological merit comforting Northrop that his flying wing concepts hadn’t been completely abandoned. By the late 1970s a variety of illnesses had left him unable to walk or speak. Shortly before his death in 1981, he was given clearance to see designs and hold a scale model of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit which shared many of the design features of his YB-35 and YB-49 designs. Northrop reportedly wrote on a sheet of paper “Now I know why God has kept me alive for 25 years”. In the Wing Will Fly documentary, B-2 project designer John Cashen says: “As he held this model in his shaking hands, it was as if you could see his entire history with the flying wing passing through his mind.” Jack Northrop died 10 months later, on February 18, 1981.[citation needed]
In 1947 he received the Spirit of St. Louis Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for “meritorious service in the advancement of aeronautics.” Investiture in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame came in 1972, and in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2003. The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has the same wingspan as Jack Northrop’s jet-powered flying wing, the YB-49.
Northrop’s passion for tailless flight was honored by the naming of a giant tailless pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus northropi.
Hawthorne Municipal Airport is also known as Jack Northrop Field in his honor.

Banksia elegans, commonly known as the elegant banksia, is a species of woody shrub in the genus Banksia of the family Proteaceae. Reaching 4 m (13 ft) high, it is a suckering shrub which rarely reproduces by seed. The round to oval yellow flower spikes appear in spring and summer. Swiss botanist Carl Meissner described Banksia elegans in 1856. It is most closely related to the three species in the subgenus Isostylis. It occurs only over a 65 square kilometre area north and west of Eneabba, Western Australia.

Banksia elegans grows as a many-stemmed spreading shrub to 4 m (13 ft) high. It commonly sends up suckers from either the roots or trunk. The trunk is up to 15 cm (6 in) in diameter and covered with grey tesselated bark, and the new stems are covered with fine hair and become smooth with maturity. New growth mainly occurs in summer. The long thin pale blue-green leaves are 20–45 cm (8–17 1⁄2 in) cm long and 1.2–1.8 cm (1⁄2–3⁄4 in) wide. Their margins are prominently serrated in a saw-tooth pattern with triangular teeth and v-shaped sinuses. The yellow flower spikes, or inflorescences, are oval or spherical and reach 6 or 7 cm in diameter. A population with particularly large inflorescences existed near Walkaway at the species’ northern limit, but was on land cleared for agriculture. Each flower spike is composed of around 400 individual flowers. Over 90% of plants and 99% of flowerheads do not develop follicles and hence set no seed.
Swiss botanist Carl Meissner described Banksia elegans in 1855, the material having been collected by James Drummond on his sixth collecting trip. He placed it in series Dryandroideae in his 1856 arrangement of the genus on account of its deeply lobed leaves. As they were defined on leaf characters alone, all of Meissner’s series were highly heterogeneous. George Bentham published a thorough revision of Banksia in his landmark publication Flora Australiensis in 1870. In Bentham’s arrangement, the number of recognised Banksia species was reduced from 60 to 46. Bentham defined four sections based on leaf, style and pollen-presenter characters. Banksia elegans was placed in section Orthostylis. In his 1891 work Revisio Generum Plantarum, German botanist Otto Kuntze challenged the generic name Banksia L.f., on the grounds that the name Banksia had previously been published in 1775 as Banksia J.R.Forst & G.Forst, referring to the genus now known as Pimelea. Kuntze proposed Sirmuellera as an alternative, republishing B. elegans as Sirmuellera elegans. The challenge failed, and Banksia L.f. was formally conserved.
George was uncertain of its relationships, though noted that the follicles and seed are not unlike those of B. ilicifolia and B. cuneata, and that it clearly had a shortening of its woody axis in the flower spike.
In 2002, a molecular study by Austin Mast showed B. elegans was basal to a group formed by the three members of the subgenus Isostylis, and that its next closest relative was B. attenuata
In 2005, Mast, Eric Jones and Shawn Havery published the results of their cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for Banksia. They inferred a phylogeny greatly different from the accepted taxonomic arrangement, including finding Banksia to be paraphyletic with respect to Dryandra. A new taxonomic arrangement was not published at the time, but early in 2007 Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement by transferring Dryandra to Banksia, and publishing B. subg. Spathulatae for the species having spoon-shaped cotyledons; in this way they also redefined the autonym B. subg. Banksia. They foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of Dryandra was complete. In the meantime, if Mast and Thiele’s nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then B. elegans is placed in B. subg. Banksia.
Banksia elegans is found in small scattered populations—consisting if fewer than 100 plants each—between the vicinities of Mt Peron and Walkaway, on flat sandplains of less than 50 m elevation. Stands are often found near winter-wet depressions. The surrounding vegetation is low shrubland or woodland. Associated species include Banksia attenuata, B. prionotes and B. menziesii.
Banksia elegans sets an extremely low amount of seed, and appears to reproduce predominantly by suckering, despite prolific flowering and low rates of flower and follicle predation. Developing seeds are also often aborted. A population studied in one field study produced an average of only two seeds per plant in sixteen years. Populations begin flowering three years after bushfire, and regenerate after fire from large underground lignotubers as well as sending up suckers. One field study found no seedlings at all post-bushfire, suggesting the shift to vegetative propagation maybe more marked than thought previously.
An assessment of the potential impact of climate change on this species found that its range is unlikely to contract and may actually grow, depending on how effectively it migrates into newly habitable areas.
Seeds do not require any treatment, and take 19 to 48 days to germinate.

Aswan (English pronunciation: /ˌæsˈwɑːn/; Egyptian Arabic: أسوان Aswān [ʔɑsˈwɑːn]; Ancient Egyptian: Swenett; Coptic: ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛ Souan; Ancient Greek: Συήνη Syene), formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.
Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dams on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city has expanded and includes the formerly separate community on the island of Elephantine.

Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, which in antiquity was the frontier town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name. This goddess later was identified as Eileithyia by the Greeks and Lucina by the Romans during their occupation of Ancient Egypt because of the similar association of their goddesses with childbirth, and of which the import is “the opener”. The ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for trade, or market.
Because the Ancient Egyptians oriented toward the origin of the life-giving waters of the Nile in the south, Swenett was the first town in the country, and Egypt always was conceived to “open” or begin at Swenett. The city stood upon a peninsula on the right (east) bank of the Nile, immediately below (and north of) the first cataract of the flowing waters, which extend to it from Philae. Navigation to the delta was possible from this location without encountering a barrier.
The stone quarries of ancient Egypt located here were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the granitic rock called Syenite. They furnished the colossal statues, obelisks, and monolithal shrines that are found throughout Egypt, including the pyramids; and the traces of the quarrymen who wrought in these 3,000 years ago are still visible in the native rock. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road, 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae.
Swenett was equally important as a military station as that of a place of traffic. Under every dynasty it was a garrison town; and here tolls and customs were levied on all boats passing southwards and northwards. Around AD 330, the legion stationed here received a bishop from Alexandria; this later became the Coptic Diocese of Syene. The city is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Herodotus, Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium, Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, and it appears on the Antonine Itinerary. It also is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Isaiah.
The latitude of the city that would become Aswan – located at 24° 5′ 23″ – was an object of great interest to the ancient geographers. They believed that it was seated immediately under the tropic, and that on the day of the summer solstice, a vertical staff cast no shadow. They noted that the sun’s disc was reflected in a well at noon. This statement is only approximately correct; at the summer solstice, the shadow was only 1/400th of the staff, and so could scarcely be discerned, and the northern limb of the Sun’s disc would be nearly vertical. However, Eratosthenes used this information together with measurements of the shadow length on the solstice at Alexandria to perform the first known calculation of the circumference of the Earth.
The Nile is nearly 650 m (0.40 mi) wide above Aswan. From this frontier town to the northern extremity of Egypt, the river flows for more than 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) without bar or cataract. The voyage from Aswan to Alexandria usually took 21 to 28 days in favourable weather.
Aswan has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) like almost all of Egypt outside the Mediterranean coast and high altitude mountains. Aswan and Luxor have the hottest summer days of any city in Egypt. Aswan is one of the hottest, sunniest and driest cities in the world. Averages high temperatures are consistently above 40 °C (104.0 °F) during summer (June, July, August and also September) while averages low temperatures remain above 25 °C (77.0 °F). Summers are long, prolonged and extremely hot. Averages high temperatures remain above 23 °C (73.4 °F) during the coldest month of the year while averages low temperatures remain above 8 °C (46.4 °F). Winters are short, brief and extremely warm. Wintertime is very pleasant and enjoyable while summertime is unbearably hot with blazing sunshine although desert heat is dry.
The climate of Aswan is extremely dry year-round, with less than 1 mm (0 in) of average annual precipitation. The desert city is one of the driest ones in the world, and rainfall doesn’t occur every year, as of early 2001, the last rain there was seven years earlier. Aswan is one of the least humid cities on the planet, with an average relative humidity of only 26%, with a maximum mean of 42% during winter and a minimum mean of 16% during summer.
The climate of Aswan is extremely clear, bright and sunny year-round, in all seasons, with a low seasonal variation, with about some 4,000 hours of annual sunshine, very close of the maximum theoretical sunshine duration. Aswan is one of the sunniest places on Earth.
The highest record temperature was 51 °C (124 °F) on May 22, 1973 and the lowest record temperature was −2 °C (28 °F) on January 6, 1989.
In 1999, South Valley University was inaugurated and it has three branches; Aswan, Qena and Hurghada. The university grew steadily and now it is firmly established as a major institution of higher education in Upper Egypt. Aswan branch of Assiut University began in 1973 with the Faculty of Education and in 1975 the Faculty of Science was opened. Aswan branch has five faculties namely; Science, Education, Engineering, Arts, Social Works and Institute of Energy. The Faculty of Science in Aswan has six departments. Each department has one educational programme: Chemistry, Geology, Physics and Zoology. Except Botany Department, which has three educational programmes: Botany, Environmental Sciences and Microbiology; and Mathematics Department, which has two educational programmes: Mathematics and Computer Science. The Faculty of Science awards the following degrees: Bachelor of Science in nine educational programmes, Higher Diploma, Master of Science and Philosophy Doctor of Science. Over 100 academic staff members are employed in.
Aswan is served by the Aswan International Airport. Train and bus service is also available. Taxi and rickshaw are used for transport here.
Archangel Michael’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, built in the Coptic style
The El-Tabia Mosque in Aswan
A view along the street connecting railway station and Nile
A street parallel to Corniche in Aswan
The Lotus-Tower near Aswan
Aswan
The Nile near Aswan
Nubia Museum: entrance

One Hundred Nails (Italian: Centochiodi) is a 2007 Italian drama film directed by Ermanno Olmi, starring Raz Degan. It tells the story of a young professor who leaves his position at the University of Bologna to live in an old farm house by the river Po, where he gets involved with the local population. The film was shown as a Special Screening at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It received the Critics Award at the 2007 David di Donatello Awards and was nominated in eight more categories, including Best Film.
Variety’s Jay Weissberg called the film “disappointing” and wrote: “In many ways, One Hundred Nails harks back to Olmi’s earliest films, with a touch of Pasolini, evident not only in the locations but also the largely nonpro cast. Fabio Olmi’s lensing repeatedly returns to the river’s calm, presenting a timeless land of purer values than those of the city, though lacking the richness of his last two pics with father Ermanno.” Geoff Andrew of Time Out London described it as “a bizarre, elegant gem”, and wrote: “Not unlike a latterday, more effective Miracle in Milan, this profoundly Catholic, profoundly personal fable veers, like many Olmi films, between the seemingly inept and the spellbindingly innocent, magical in its tenderness, its striking visuals and its unpredictability. Don’t miss – but give it time.”

The 1919 Actors’ Equity Association (AEA or “Equity”) strike officially spanned from August 7, 1919 to September 6, 1919. The AEA had, only a few weeks prior, become affiliated with the AFL and called the strike against the Producing Managers’ Association on August 7. Before the strike, many actors were required to give hundreds of hours of free rehearsal time, pay for their own travel and costume expenses, and could be fired immediately for not playing their roles to their managers’ satisfaction. Between August 7 and September 6, hundreds of actors walked out of theaters predominantly in New York City and Chicago. As the strike gained support, other laborers in the industry walked out with them, including musicians and stagehands. During negotiations on September 6, 1919, the managers gave the actors all of their demands after losing millions of dollars.
The 1919 Equity strike was especially significant because it helped to reshape the definition of labor. Before the strike, legitimate actors had not attempted to strike due to the idea that they were not in the same class as industrial workers. The strike served to broaden the idea of what it means to be a laborer as well as the notion of which industries should organize.

In the late 19th century, the theater industry underwent significant changes that helped to create an increasingly poor work environment for actors. One of the most important changes was the formation of the Theatrical Syndicate, or the Klaw-Erlinger Syndicate, which was created in 1896 by several successful theater owners and booking managers including Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlinger. These men gained control over the majority of theaters in America by applying big business methods to the theater industry, creating a booking monopoly.
Shortly after the formation of the Theatrical Syndicate, the Shubert brothers started their own monopolistic venture, gaining control over much of the industry. By the 1919 Equity Strike, powerful managers controlled the booking of virtually every theater in the country. It was in this world of managerial combining that the strike of 1919 would occur.
By the turn of the century, the average actor or actress was consistently taken advantage of by his or her managers. In addition to often paying for their own stage costumes and travel, actors were forced to agree to as many hours of free rehearsal time as their managers desired. They spent weeks, even months, rehearsing performances without any sort of compensation. Furthermore, company performance routes were subject to change literally overnight – sometimes evening performances that had low ticket sales would be cancelled, and the actors would not be paid for the cancelled show. Managers would make up for these cancelled shows by traveling during the night to the next destination and performing an additional matinee there. Even though actors lost the pay from the cancelled show the previous evening, they would not be compensated for doing the additional matinee. Finally, another industry-wide grievance regarded the “satisfaction clause,” which was commonly referred to as the “joker clause.” This clause was found in most contracts between actors and managers and stated that the manager could fire the actor if the actor did not play his or her part to the manager’s satisfaction. This gave managers the right to fire players for simply not …could have their salaries cut without warning for any reason.
To combat these grievances, 112 actors formed the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA or “Equity”) in New York City in May 1913. They elected Francis Wilson president of the association. It was clear to them that the current organizations for players, like the White Rats and the Actors’ Society, did not sufficiently protect their interests and a new organization was needed. By the end of its first year, Equity bragged a membership of over 1500 actors, many of them quite well-known. In 1914, the organization began to work to develop a standard contract to present to the United Managers Protective Association (UMPA), the managers’ combination that controlled the majority of the industry. This contract included provisions on how many free rehearsals managers could require of players. It also demanded extra pay for more than eight performances in a week, at least a two-week notice of dismissal, and that the managers cover travel and costuming expenses. For three years, the managers ignored their demands, leading many to question whether or not affiliation with the American Federation of Labor was necessary for success.
There was much debate in Equity over applying for an AFL charter. This was because most actors did not consider themselves “laborers”. They were artists, and many believed it would ruin the dignity of their trade to resort to the lowly, working-class technique of organizing. However, with the managers refusing to acknowledge Equity’s demands, it became clear that a charter and national support was necessary. On May 29, 1916, 518 out of 519 Equity representatives voted to apply to join the AFL at their annual meeting.
The AFL refused to offer Equity an independent charter because all performers were already represented in the AFL by the White Rats, an organization formed by vaudeville performers. They did however offer Equity a charter as a branch of the international White Rats union, but Equity declined, requesting that the White Rats amend their charter so that they could represent vaudeville performers while Equity represented “legitimate” actors. The White Rats refused.
While Equity’s first attempt to join the AFL was not initially successful, it did seem to get the attention of the managers. On October 2, 1917, the UMPA voted to sign a standard contract that would be valid for one year and was to be used by all companies under their control. The contract included the majority of the Equity’s demands, and for a time it looked as though the organization had won, without the help of the AFL.
The victory was short-lived. The majority of managers consistently violated the contract they had signed and refused to acknowledge AEA as a legitimate organization. In 1919, UMPA dissolved and formed the Producing Managers’ Association (PMA), which also sought to destroy Equity’s success by attempting to change the UMPA-AEA standard contract or by simply ignoring aspects of it. Many Equity actors found themselves with just as little power as they had had before organizing, forced to deal independently with managers who may or may not choose to recognize the standard contract or the AEA as a representative of the actor.
A resolution between the White Rats and the AEA came at just the right time for the actors. On July 18, 1919, both organizations came to an agreement to form a new umbrella organization for performing arts, the Associated Actors and Artists of America (the 4A’s). The White Rats gave up its international charter, and the 4A’s took its place in the AFL. Therefore, when both unions received charters as branches of the 4A’s, they were officially AFL-affiliated.
Affiliation with such an influential labor organization gave Equity power and support it did not previously have. The AEA was the first organization of its kind, and the public noticed. In fact, the next day the New York Times devoted an entire article to the new union, reporting proudly that the “unionization of the actor became an established fact.”
On July 30, 1919, the New York Times reported that, “active warfare between the Actors’ Equity Association and theatrical managers was begun yesterday afternoon when an attempt was made to call out a number of the members of the ‘Chu Chin Chow’ company, now in rehearsal at the Century Theater.” The article goes on to discuss how both the managers and the actors believed they had been victorious. However, it seems the victory was on the side of the managers – even though Equity had demanded a walk-out of all its members because the manager refused to acknowledge an AEA contract, only one member followed through. Though Wilson announced the evening after the “walk-out” that the other members would not be returning to rehearse at the Century Theater the next day, they attended the rehearsal, refusing to give up their jobs. The actors would need to put on a much stronger performance to gain any ground.
On August 7, 1919, the Actors’ Equity Association officially declared a strike, stating in its resolution, “we will not perform any service for any manager who is a member of the Producing Managers’ Association or who refuses to recognize our association or issue its contract.” That night, twelve famous New York theaters closed, including Shubert Playhouse, Gaiety, Astor, and Forty-Fourth Street. The managers, completely unprepared for the strike, were forced to give an estimate of $25,000 in ticket refunds that night and scramble to find actors to replace the stars that had walked out. By the end of the first fortnight, only five theaters in New York City were still operating.
After the initial outbreak, the PMA met to discuss their plan of action. It released a statement on August 11, which claimed that Equity was the enemy of both the manager and the actor, as it rendered both unable to freely engage in contract labor – both had lost their personal liberty. The managers also filed suits for damages against Equity. In an attempt to scare Equity members, it printed a warning in the New York Times which declared that actors were personally responsible for the revenue lost during the strike because they were violating the UMPA-AEA contract (which managers had consistently violated) by going on strike. The actors however seized this opportunity to point out that the contract actually recognized the Actors’ Equity Association as a party to the contract in Clause 18, which governed arbitration. This meant that, by refusing to acknowledge Equity as a legitimate representative of the actor, the PMA had violated the contract first. Therefore, Equity actors had reason and justification for breaking the contract by striking.
The strike was not contained to New York City. After the strike in New York began, William called on the local Equity organization in Chicago, asking specific actors to walk out on the productions A Prince there Was and Cappy Ricks in order to demonstrate the power Equity had over theaters around the country. On August 12, these actors gave notice to their managers and walked out on the productions. By August 20, all of the theaters in Chicago were closed. The strike spread quickly to other large cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Providence, St. Louis, and Atlantic City; there was particular success in Pittsburgh, where the majority of theaters were closed by the end of the strike.
During the strike, the actors used a number of techniques to reach the people and pressure the managers. Not only did thousands of players walk out, but they also picketed the closed theaters. In New York, hundreds of Equity members could be found outside closed theaters every night waving banners and delivering speeches about the injustices committed by the managers. The strikers consistently spoke to the press and held parades in order to cultivate public support. One of the most famous parades occurred on Wall Street; it consisted of fifteen cars full of well-dressed, leading actresses driven by prominent actors. As the bystanders cheered the actors and actresses on, it was clear that the actors, not the managers, had the support of the people.
In order to raise money for the strike, Equity put on benefit shows. On August 16, there was a parade down Broadway to support the first benefit show on August 18. These plays were shown at the Lexington Theater and were a huge success. The house was full nearly every night, and Equity was able to raise thousands in a very short period of time.
Equity membership soared like never before during the strike; by August 16, Equity reported having 6,000 members. It began the strike with 4,200. However, it wasn’t just actors and actresses that came out in support of the AEA. Five million trade unionists around the country officially supported the strike. The Teamster Union of Chauffeurs, Stable Men and Helpers refused to deliver to managers that opposed the AEA. The International Alliance of Billposters and Billers of the United States and Canada refused to post bills for theaters with anti-Equity managers. On September 2, 1919, the New York Times announced that the “Stagehands Now Run the Strike”, after stagehands and musicians in Boston and New York walked out to support the strike. Their absence forced six Boston theaters to shut their doors.
After receiving overwhelming support from the AFL, public, press, and unions all over the country, Equity declared victory on September 6, 1919. This date marked the day that the PMA signed the AEA’s basic agreement, giving the union everything it had demanded during the strike. All PMA members were required to use AEA contracts. The contract forced managers to finally pay the actors for overtime and extra rehearsals as well as travel and costumes. It also decided the number of shows that would constitute a full week’s work and established an official payday, Saturday. Finally, the PMA agreed to lift all of the blacklists they had created and the lawsuits they had begun during the strike.
One of the most significant impacts of the strike that is consistently discussed by historians is the impact it had on the definition of labor. Before the strike, neither the actors nor the public viewed stage actors as workers, and few thought it even possible for them to successfully organize. However, as the need to organize became clear to Equity, a shift in the way acting and actors were viewed began to occur. The New Republic article “Acting as a Trade” captures this shift, explaining that the managers “gave them [the actors] the short end of every contract,” as the actors, “hugged their romantic pride.” It goes on to explain how the actors would only be successful if they adopted the means of the working man, as they faced the same hardships. The creation of Equity and the successful strike of 1919 served to break the perceived class barrier between the actor and the industrial worker.
Equity’s victory was inspirational primarily because of the difficulty actors and actresses faced when attempting to organize. Actors were constantly on the road, rehearsing and performing shows. Furthermore, there was a huge disparity between members of Equity in regard to status and salary that didn’t exist in other unions. “Given the resources of the theater manager and the deep divisions in the acting community,” explains historian Sean P. Holmes, “the odds in the actor-manager war were…heavily stacked against the AEA” (Holmes 1315). Nevertheless, Equity received all it demanded from the PMA, and in doing so managed to inspire other unions, such as the American Newspaper Guild, to organize and to consult with Equity for strategies and advice. The Equity strike also encouraged other unions within the industry to form. Performers in the fields of film, television and radio were emboldened by the success of the 1919 strike. Finally, the formation of the Chorus Equity Association as a branch of the AEA was founded during the 1919 strike. It was made up of chorus players, who were generally on the receiving end of some of the lowest salaries and worst managerial abuses. Though it had been thought impossible for actors to organize and strike successfully due to both the logistical difficulties they faced and their initial, negative attitudes towards organized labor, they were able to achieve their goals by means of organizing.